Characin

What do these fish look like? How do they behave? What do you need to know about Toothless Characins?

What do they look like?
Toothless characins are colorful creatures. They are certainly fun to watch, as they can take on many different colors from oranges to greens to blacks to reds to blues, and they have fairly thick transparent fins that are fun to watch as they glide through the water. These fish can vary fairly greatly in size, ranging from half a pound to five or six pounds. They are typically longer than they are wide, but some species of toothless characins actually come close to being equally as wide as they are long. These fish are quite scaly, and many of them are iridescent. The toothless characins are, of course, toothless. But they still have mouths and jaws. Their mouths are actually found on top at the rounded tip of their bodies near their eyes.

How do they behave?
You generally won't see toothless characins eating meat. They mainly herbivorous, because they don't have teeth. It is quite odd to think of a fish of its size to be eating algae, fungus and other minuscule sea creatures, but that's what they feed on.

What else should you know about toothless characins?
Male toothless characins usually maintain a brighter color scheme than their female counterparts. This is used generally in order to attract the females during spawning. One problem for these creatures during spawning season: the males generally travel in large groups in tropical waters in order to start the breeding process, only to find out that they've been caught by anglers who generally fish in the places they prefer to spawn.

How are normal characins different?
Characins with teeth are able to eat meat. They can vary in size, and the larger ones actually enjoy preying on other fish that are significant in size.